


san fran

by allthatconfetti



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M, wow this was really self-indulgent and a lot of nothing i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 20:01:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9841718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthatconfetti/pseuds/allthatconfetti
Summary: Junhui walks into the coffee shop where Joshua works in San Francisco.Backpacker/traveler AU.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try something really different for this fic, so I hope the almost no dialogue isn't too jarring.
> 
> I really love this pairing and this dynamic, so I hope I did it justice. I apologize in advance if I did not.

‘Impossible’ is the word that pops into Joshua’s head when the lanky stranger idles up to his counter. Impossible because he’s carrying what looks like the biggest and heaviest backpack known to mankind on his shoulders like it’s nothing, because he’s doing it with a radiant smile, and because there’s no way someone can look that good with what looks like approximately two days of grime on him. There’s a smudge high on his cheekbone that Joshua is itching to wipe off, but he doesn’t really think that’s appropriate behavior for a barista, especially one who isn’t in any way your acquaintance.

Joshua welcomes him to the shop and asks for his order, and the boy smiles at him, smiles in a way that feels like he is the singular thing in the universe worth his attention at that very moment. It takes Joshua aback but he tries not to let him see. The boy’s voice sounds like smoothened sandpaper, soft with a hint of gravity, but there’s nothing heavy about the pickup line he drops on Joshua. It makes Joshua laugh and cover his mouth with the back of his hand.

It worked in Moscow and Sydney, the boy grouses. Joshua is charmed.

You sound like you’ve seen a lot of the world, he says.

I’m traveling, the boy replies. Traveling is another strange word to Joshua. Joshua, who’s only lived in one place his whole life, who has never really seen any farther than the city he calls home. San Francisco is beautiful and interesting, but it’s also as familiar to him as the back of his hand. Something was always keeping him from going too far; he realizes later on that the something was himself.

You must travel a lot, Joshua says out loud. The credit card he gave him for his coffee and two cheese muffins said his name was Junhui, Junhui Wen.

I do, says the boy. He smiles and Joshua thinks, wow. There’s a strange sort of humming underneath his skin when he looks at the boy--Junhui--that he can’t quite identify as a particular emotion, can’t quite figure out if it’s attraction or envy. Maybe a little bit of both. 

I have, says the boy, and Joshua’s heart beats faster.

\---

Tell me about the places you’ve seen, he asks over his ten minute break.

I’ll tell you, Junhui answers. He leans, easy, against the wall outside the coffee shop Joshua works at. He pokes bits and pieces of the muffin into his mouth, fastidiously, and Joshua thinks it’s a little bit precious. 

On one condition, Junhui continues.

Joshua blinks. Name it, he answers.

Junhui smiles at him, not the big wide grin he greeted him with when they first met an hour or two ago. Come with me.

Around San Francisco, I mean, Junhui clarifies, but in that brief two second pause, Joshua realizes two things.

Junhui has the sweetest of moles mapped across his face like a universe.

And he would have said yes.

\---

Junhui laughs a lot.

Joshua brings him everywhere; to the places where any self-respecting traveler ought to see at least once--Joshua’d actually never been to Alcatraz, so that was kind of fun--and to the places where only locals frequented. Junhui likes the charm of Seward Street and the quiet ode to the ocean in the Maritime National Historical Park and the vibrance of the city reflected in the MOMA. Joshua shows him where he grew up, the hills and the trolleys and the marriage of the historical and the modern. Junhui called the place whimsical, almost magical, and seeing it with Junhui had Joshua tending to agree. It’s hard to see something new when it’s always in front of you, but hearing Junhui’s awe and listening to him talk about things he never even noticed before - the color of the oldest tenements and the sound of cardboard against cement and the taste of shared mini donuts bought at the wharf - it makes Joshua see his city in a new light. And yearn for more.

Junhui tells him that San Francisco is the most interesting place he’s been so far. Joshua hopes it’s not just because of the sightseeing.

After a night out where Junhui takes in a little too many pints of beer, Joshua takes him to get apple fritters. While waiting for their order, Junhui falls asleep on Joshua’s shoulder. The weight of his head is warm against his neck, and Joshua spends several minutes contemplating the way Junhui’s eyelashes look against the curve of his cheek. His fingers itch to trace the dots on his face together, ending right at the tip of his eye. Joshua remembers the mark on Junhui’s cheek that he was there when he first met him and smiles at how Junhui’s face has another similar smudge on his temple this time.

Junhui wraps an arm around his when he tries to stand up to get their order, and Joshua feels warm. Feels like he should tug free but realizes that it’s the last thing he wants to do. So he sits and he doesn’t, right until Junhui wakes up on the fourth call for their order. 

\---

Joshua decides to do the first brave thing in his life after they see the golden hydrant. Junhui is eating chocolate ice cream from a cone and talking about how wonderful the idea of painting the hydrant was to remind themselves about mistakes of the past and how amazing the ice cream in San Francisco is and Joshua is telling him that he hasn’t really had it in a long time and Junhui is absolutely aghast, with the corner of his lip smeared with chocolate ice cream, and Joshua looks at him and thinks his heart couldn’t feel more fond.

He doesn’t know Junhui very well but he knows that Junhui can talk for hours on end, sometimes purposeful and sometimes on a ramble but it’s always entertaining and Joshua enjoys being on the other end of it. He knows Junhui prefers sweet to salty, spicy when it’s something new, and the sour stuff once and only once. He prefers to walk rather than drive when he can, and if he can get away with it, he prefers to dance most of all. He doesn’t like to linger over delicate things but marvels at the large, the unusual, the bold, whether it’s food or art or people. It’s the last part that’s had Joshua on edge because he doesn’t know if he even likes boys, and if he does, if he’d like him.

But Junhui is so long and so beautiful and Joshua knows it could be years later when he’s eighty five and sitting on a bench at the pier and he would still be thinking about this moment if he never took the chance. So he does, and kisses him.

Junhui kisses back.

Much later on, Junhui laughs again, tells him that he would have kissed him the first day they met, if only he hadn’t looked like he would frighten under his fingers. Joshua scoffs, but tugs him closer by the strings of his hoodie to press his lips against his again and again and again.

\---

It’s when he watches Junhui spend more time on his phone googling Barcelona that Joshua starts to wonder what life would be like post-Junhui. He wonders if he’ll just be another one of Junhui’s encounters at the cities he stays at. 

He wonders how he feels to be ‘the barista in San Francisco.’

Junhui places a soft kiss on his cheek before he walks out the door. Joshua’s at the coffee shop where he works because he’d spent all his vacation time taking Junhui out to see the city. He never even did that when his parents visited from Southern California.

Before he leaves, Junhui gives him the softest smile and tells him to stay in touch. If Joshua closed his eyes long enough, he could believe that he meant it.

\---

It’s three weeks later and Joshua is doing the second brave thing in his life.

He’s throwing in seven days worth of durable laundry in a bag and clutching a ticket to South Korea in his hand. His parents are confused about him suddenly quitting his job and going off to a random airport destination, but they manage to convince him to see his aunts and uncles in Busan before he does whatever he intends to do.

He sees his relatives, and is fascinated by the country of his grandparents before they moved to America. His mediocre Korean has his aunts clucking their tongues, but they stroke his hair fondly before he leaves again.

He doesn’t have enough saved to venture farther than east Asia, but it’s enough for him for now. He takes up odd jobs at foreign metropolises, because for some reason there’s always a Starbucks willing to take him up for a month or two before he moves on. And he does move on. He moves on to Tokyo and Osaka and Hong Kong and Singapore. He sleeps on beaches in Bali and Boracay and even buys a handy ukelele in Vietnam to carry around. He plucks at its strings as he makes up songs about the sunsets in Penang, the architecture of Bangkok and the electricity that runs through Seoul, but he feels like there’s something very lonely about it all, and there’s an ache inside him that still cannot ease. There are days when he thinks about stopping, about getting a steady job, about flying back home and settling down, but he thinks there’s still too much of the world for him to see.

\---

He makes his way up from Hong Kong. Shenzhen is only a few hours away by train, after all.

They’ve been friends on Facebook for three years now, and Junhui stopped traveling for the time being to take over his family’s bustling restaurant business.

Joshua is seated in a nice solo table, and he asks for some house tea, dimsum and for the dining room manager.

He knows how Junhui looks, has seen his updates on Facebook intermittently over the months, but he doesn’t expect his stomach to flutter the same way it did three years ago when he stepped into the coffee shop where he worked that day.

Joshua, Junhui breathes, and he looks surprised.

Hello Junhui, Joshua greets him, and he smiles.

\---

It’s five days later when Joshua realizes that he doesn’t just want to see the world; he wants to see it with Junhui. 

It’s two days after that when Junhui tells him the same. He was always quicker on the uptake than he was.

\---

Junhui tells him it’s about time for him to go home again. Joshua agrees, because he misses his parents. They board a plane to San Francisco a week later.

They’re standing in the trolley; Junhui has his arms around him and braces the both of them against the back rail. Joshua is pointing out a spot and asking him if he remembers it.

Of course, Junhui tells him. The hold around his waist tightens. That’s where I ordered muffins and a cappuccino.

And?

Junhui presses his lips to Joshua’s cheek quickly, before laying his forehead on his shoulder, as if suddenly shy.

You know the rest.

The rest is five more years later, fifteen passports between them both, scarred appendages and fingers roughened from manual labor, and a newly published book about backpacking and budget travelling. The rest is a short term leased apartment room, Junhui hunched over his laptop typing up notes, and him strumming his ukelele along to whatever melody was playing in his head while they roamed the streets together earlier that day. The rest is hundreds of shared meals and kisses, a partnership, a companion, a friend. The rest is Joshua and Junhui, everything before and everything after.

Joshua nudges him and Junhui murmurs a laugh into his collar. They're both laughing as the trolley slides up the familiar streets of San Francisco.

(The rest is Junhui asking Joshua to marry him as they’re sharing a chocolate ice cream cone after seeing the golden hydrant again. The rest is Joshua saying yes.)

\---

“Hi, welcome to Kopa Coffee,” Joshua smiles and rattles off his usual spiel for new customers. The boy looks behind him to check if there’s anyone he’s holding up the line for; seeing no one, his face brightens and he takes more time to peruse the offerings in the freezer display and the menu. “Do you…” He starts, but trails off when he sees the boy bending over the display case, pressing his wide hands against the glass. “I mean, would you like to hear about the customer favorites?”

“Hmm? Oh, it’s okay,” the boy says. The boy smiles at him; his mouth stretches wide to show off brilliant white teeth that pulls at his face and brightens it up in the most oddly endearing way. “I already know what to order. I just needed to take my time so that I could look at you longer.”

Joshua laughs, the back of his hand coming up to cover his mouth. “Does that line ever work on anyone?”

The boy tosses his head, dark brown hair settling in waves over his ears, and puffs out his cheeks, trying to look pathetic. “Well it worked on a waiter in Moscow. And on a barista in Sydney.”

“Well, we San Francisco baristas are a trickier lot,” Joshua shrugs, and then smiles. He doesn’t know this boy but he finds him strangely easy to talk to. His cheeks pink when the boy finally moves up to his counter, bracing two arms against it, head tilted as he peers at him. “Would you like to give me your order now?”

“In a minute,” the boy says lightly. From up close, Joshua’s urge to just rub at the smudge on the boy’s cheekbone is stronger. The boy scrunches his nose. “Okay, I’ll have one Kopa cappuccino please. In the second size.”

Joshua presses a bunch of numbers into the register, the tiny little beeping sounds an odd little moodbreaker between them. “That will be five dollars.”

“Not bad. I’ll take that plus two cheese muffins,” the boy says, pursing his lips. He pats around his pants, trying to figure out which pocket had his wallet--it was his right back pocket--and takes out a credit card. Joshua slides it through his machine and waits for the telltale signs of a successful transaction.

“So,” Joshua says, internally cursing the speed of their connection to Visa. “You sound like you've seen a lot of the world."

"I do a lot of... traveling," Junhui replies. He tilts his head, almost coyly at Joshua, who tries studiously to keep his gaze averted.

"You must travel a lot.”

“I do,” the boy (the credit card said his name was Junhui, Junhui Wen) says. “I have.” He smiles at Joshua, whose cheeks redden.

“Listen,” Junhui says. He bounces a little on his heels. “Do you go on break in awhile? I’d like to talk to you more. Ask more questions, you know, about San Francisco?”

“Oh,” Joshua breathes. “Sure, of course. I take a break in ten minutes.” He smiles at Junhui, and Junhui lets out a sigh that sounds like it's one of relief.

“Cool, okay great. I’ll just be there,” Junhui points outside. He offers out his hand, and Joshua, amused, takes it. “I'm Junhui. And I can’t wait.”


End file.
